


we all need someone to stay

by tootiredmotel



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Multi, Precious Peter Parker, Slight Stony, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, steve is barely in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 12:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14670867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tootiredmotel/pseuds/tootiredmotel
Summary: Peter had heard the song and felt a connectionIf Tony knew it was a pop culture reference as well as a truthful sentiment, he'd probably lose it(IW spoilers, in case some of y'all haven't seen it)





	we all need someone to stay

**Author's Note:**

> this song came on shuffle listening to my star emoji-heart emoji-flower emoji playlist and it's been so long since I've heard it but i got hit with THIS

_**WILL YOU FIX ME UP, WILL YOU SHOW  ME HOPE** _   


  


Tony Stark met Peter Parker and saw himself. A bright, fifteen year old. 

  


Sure, Peter Parker lived in an apartment in Queens with his aunt and wasn't a billionaire, but the kid was still something special, more than he'd ever be. 

  


He knows he did the wrong thing in bringing said fifteen year old to Germany, _"What the hell were you thinking Tony?"_ , which was why he decided that he wouldn't just drop the kid off at the apartment afterwards and keep an eye in case he was stupid. Sure, that was part of it. Just different reasoning. If he just made sure the kid was alive and not being a stupid teenager- a kid- he'd be no better than Howard. " _The minimum amount of effort yielded the minimum amount of function"_ or whatever that fortune cookie said. 

  


And anyways, how could he let that much raw talent, brilliance in a boy with a knack for learning and building, go unrecognized? With no opportunity for-no, that was wrong. Peter Parker's too smart to not receive opportunities to collaborate or tinker, in Pepper's word, with other smart scientists. But if he's honest, Tony's probably the only one that would put up with him. And he'd already put up with a lot. Rhodey pointed out a gray hair. _A. Gray. Hair._

_  
_

On one hand, he could just find ways for the kid to learn how to multitask in the real world, juggle different things so that if-when he worked with other geniuses, he wouldn't get fired for disappearing to help an old lady cross a street or feed a dog dumpster food. _"But Mr. Stark, he's well-behaved!" Peter had held the smelly dog up, trying to convince him to take the mutt in. "That makes one of you."_

_  
_

On the other hand, he didn't _want_ Peter to leave and work with someone else. He could teach, he could do the mentor thing. He'd help the kid, and the kid would help him. 

  


The kid already was helping him, in more ways than one. 

  


For instance, Tony didn't think he'd ever get the chance to have kids. He played women and Pepper just wasn't really a kid person. He and Steve used to talk about adopting, if they had normal lives. But it was just talk. 

  


But Peter showed Tony that _thank god he'd didn't have kids, is this what parents went through?_

_  
_

While he was glad May got the Special Parenting thing down, he couldn't help but want to be in the kid's life, as unnecessary as his presence was. 

  


Peter also was Tony's daily Jiminy Cricket. He'd made the reference once, but the kid had hit him with a _"You mean Charlotte from Charlotte's Web?"_ and he did two things after that. One, he felt _old_. Two, he teased the kid mercilessly for referring to himself as a moral spider. That was when he learned about Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends. He thought it was funny that the kid had so many spider related childhood memories. Then again, he'd had a lot of engineering moments himself in adolescence. The foreshadowing in their early lives represented yet another parallel. 

  


Through Peter, Tony realized that his broken heart was almost mending itself. Almost. Peter did that himself, if he's honest. 

  


_**THE END OF THE DAY, I'M HELPLESS** _   


_**  
** _

__He couldn't stop thinking about Siberia.

  


He and Steve were going great and then Barnes happened. Does he understand that Barnes was/is Steve's best friend? Yes, Rhodey's his. Does he understand that Barnes was brainwashed? So was Loki. That doesn't mean he didn't cause harm. 

  


Their relationship held no signs of coming to and end any time soon, until the meeting with Ross, because things were going great. Which was why when it ended so fast, after all the build-up of becoming a thing, their getting together being a slow burn, it hurt. 

  


His relationships usually ended painful, as it turned out.

  


Starting with his parents, they weren't as close as the Parkers, even if there were only two of them left. 

  


Then when he and Stephen Strange were kind of a side thing. Not really in a relationship, more like late night hookups. Then Stephen left him for Christine and he met Pepper about the same time. Rhodey thought Pepper could be good for him, based on how she showed she cared a hell of a lot more than Stephen. But then he and Pepper split up. Theirs was a love story meant to end. 

  


Apparently so was his and Steve's. Everything they went through, they went through together for the duration of their relationship. There was no "get your ass back here, Tony" because Steve was usually there with him. He would never blame Pepper for that, the life they led wasn't meant for everyone. 

  


So yeah, he wasn't meant to find love apparently. And then he met Peter Parker and felt a different kind of love. He saw Peter as a son, he'd even wanted to have adoption papers set aside, just in case. _And he did. ~~And it took everything in him to not have blood tests done, there's no way he created anything as pure and special as Peter.~~_

_~~  
~~ _

~~~~

Then, because he and Pepper remained friends, they went jogging in Central Park one morning. He told her the dream where he had a kid. He didn't get the chance to tell her that Peter was in the dream because Stephen Strange in all of his mystic glory showed up. Soon enough, Siberia was on the back burner. Now the only thing he could think about was Titan. 

  


_**CAN YOU KEEP ME CLOSE, CAN YOU LOVE ME MOST** _   


_**  
** _

__It'd only been eleven hours later, but if felt like he lost Peter for eleven years.

  


Carol Danvers, a friend of Fury's, showed up and saved everyone's asses. Captain Marvel was her "made up name" and Tony would be damned if he started taking orders from another blonde captain, or any captain at all. 

  


He'd think about setting Danvers up with a new suit later, right now he wanted to focus on the boy he was holding against his chest. He was not crying, he was absolutely not crying from joy that his kid's alive. He hadn't had a lot of reunions in his life, but this was by far his favorite. 

  


_"Tony, get to Wakanda as soon as possible. Everyone's coming back and Thor's got the gauntlet. Thanos is dead." It was like Rhodey was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. The only problem was that he couldn't get to Wakanda without making a stop on Titan first. If everyone was coming back, he couldn't just not be there when Peter came back._   


_  
_

_Getting there, he saw the alien girl with antennas helping the big guy, and Quill looking down at himself reforming. "Stark! What the hell, man, you left?"_

_  
_

_"You woke Thanos up."_

_  
_

_"Fair, fair. Let me just say, from the bottom of my heart, my bad."_

_  
_

_Stephen came back next, bragging on how he was right about it being 'the only way'. Tony had a mixed urge to punch him and kiss him, bad habits or something like that. "Can it, Strange, where's the kid?"_

_  
_

_"Your ward? Him too?"_

_  
_

_Peter start forming on the ground, about fifteen feet from where Tony stood and he rushed by the kid's side. "To-Tony?"_

_  
_

_They stayed there on the ground, Tony holding the kid tightly, the kid gripping back just as tight._

_  
_

_****_ ******_WE ALL NEED SOMEONE TO HOLD (STAY)_ **

**_  
_ **

__The others, the ones in Wakanda, faced great loss too. Wanda, Vision, a member of Quill's group, Wilson, Barnes, T'Challa, there were more, considering Thanos wiped out half of the population of the planet.

  


Rhodey greeted him first, telling him just where everyone was. Sam, Wanda, Bruce and Shuri were waiting on Tony so they could get started on trying to bring Vision back. Thor, Rocket and the teenage tree were about to take off, take the raccoon and tree back to Quill's group. _"For petesake, Thor, he's not a_ _rabbit."_ Something in Tony bristled, because he just couldn't even imagine using that phrase again. 

  


He wondered where Steve and Barnes and Natasha were. He thought Nat might've been with Okoye, or comforting Wanda. She'd grown in showing affection, he learned. But no, she was with Barnes. At first, when he saw them, he thought _why not? Why wouldn't one of his close friends choose Barnes of all people, she took Steve's side in Berlin._ But then he saw them get closer and realized that she was _with_ Barnes. The only thing left was finding Steve. He really didn't have to, but with the way things with Ross turned out, it was time everyone came home. 

  


So he went inside, made his way to where everyone else was waiting on him, Peter at his side. Turns out, it's all he had to do. Because not only was Steve there, waiting outside the room, but so was May Parker. The kid rushed to his aunt, nearly knocking her over from the hug. 

  


He got an earful from the woman. But instead of it being _"how dare you drag him into this"_ it was her gratitude, for bringing her kid back. With, of course, a sharp punch to the shoulder. After that, he and Steve had a long talk. 

  


_"Back then, I hadn't really known Peggy long enough to come up with baby names. Just knew that I wanted it."_   


_  
_

_"There's this kid in Queens. We're not blood, but..."  "But family doesn't end in blood."_

_  
_

_  
_

****

**Author's Note:**

> :)))))))))))


End file.
